How to get an A1 in History?

0mega

Has anyone here gotten an A1 before either in the Leaving Cert or mocks?

If so, how did you manage it? I find studying for history really hard! So much to learn and it's so hard to know what will come up on the paper!

Any advice would be appreciated.

mixery

I can study no problem, but writing is difficult, the highest I've ever gotten is a B1. Giving information and facts is not enough, you need to evaluate it et cetera. I won't be of much help as I'm looking for that key to writing good essays also.

user.name

It depends on how people study. Some learn off essays in hope that what they learnt will come up. What I always do for history is just learn the facts, and then you can twist your information around to suit the question. Look at what topics come up the most frequent. I'm doing sov and partition and every year they have always included a case study on the paper, or a question based around it, the Anglo Irish treaty is tipped for this year but then again anyone of them can come up. Its the same for N.I if you are doing that one. Dictatorship and democracy is a bit more difficult as not always a case study will come up. Usually a question on Russia or Nazi's/Weimar Republic come up each year, this year it may well be Russia. Condense your learning, read through the textbook and use a revise book to get your main points from. I guess thats just me I don't learn off essays for any subject.. hope I helped in some way :pac:

rebeccaxtine

I'm condensing the history course as much as possible...for the sov&partition I'm doing every possible essay I can for the period between 1912 and 1932, so 1916, Rise of Sinn Fein, Key personalities and CnaG etc, plus I think the anglo irish treaty is likely this year. Then its kinda the same for N.Irl, 1949 to Sunningdale, cause i'm pretty sure it will come up this year too, one way or another. European is a lot harder to condense, so I'm just doing essays on sections that did'nt come up last year...Anglo American pop culture,Lenin, Rise of Fascism, propaganda,technology of war, Jarrow and society during the war....And for the documents, I'm doing all the contextualisations I can for Katanga and France, and then just briefly glancing over India....Thats really it, I think doing an essay is the best way to revise a section, cause by doing that you're definetly gonna improve how you structure your essay aswell...works for me, and thats how I've been getting A2s and the odd A1.....hope that helps!

Jolly Red Giant

0mega wrote: »

Has anyone here gotten an A1 before either in the Leaving Cert or mocks?

If so, how did you manage it? I find studying for history really hard! So much to learn and it's so hard to know what will come up on the paper!

Any advice would be appreciated.

The key to getting a high mark in history is improving the quality of your essays. The best way to improve the quality is to write essays. Take the past papers and spend 40 minutes answering an essay question on the paper.

In your essays wirte each paragraph by outlining a revelent topic, providing evidence / information to explain the relevence of the topic and then refer to how it answers the question.

Dropping No Eaves

Got an A2 in the mock. I didn't do much actually study for it, only the night before was actually concentrated on the test. I didn't examine myself under time pressure, I just read over a few essays. I also only studied France, and Katanga came up.

Mind you, I was EXTREMELY fortunate with the essay titles that came up. I just wrote what I could, without much of a structure on the essay. The Document question is really easy to get high marks on, so I still got in the 70s on that one, despite being hazy on the actual question.

SeanyboyQPR

I have another mockk tomorrow, I'm still goosed for history as yet...I have home rule and the land question, all of cumann na ngaedheal and fianna fail and just us foreign policy done

EuropeanSon

Got an A1 (96.5% to be precise) 3 years ago. It's not rocket science, you just need to remember all the important points and spew them out in a coherent manner on the day.

You don't even need to write heaps. I wrote just over 3 pages for each essay, and scored 100% on two of them (actually 106 and 114, as they write down how many marks you earn on the transcript, though when they total it up they obviously only give you 100 max). It's all about knowing the events that went on, and how they all fit together, and forming a coherent narrative of events. Deep analysis isn't really very necessary. Just basic common sense analysis should do, you shouldn't really need to prepare that. The preparation is just remembering all the events.

Also, unless you are referring to a sequence of events very close together (eg this happened on the Monday, then this happened on Thursday etc.), dates are unnecessary.

Absoluvely

EuropeanSon wrote: »

Also, unless you are referring to a sequence of events very close together (eg this happened on the Monday, then this happened on Thursday etc.), dates are unnecessary.

Did you say unless when you really meant if?

(Or unnecessary when you really meant necessary?)

EuropeanSon

Absoluvely wrote: »

Did you say unless when you really meant if?

(Or unnecessary when you really meant necessary?)

No. My statement meant "that is the only case in which you DO need dates".

eg. I answered on the Hungarian uprising, and I said "this happened on the 20th, then this on the 22nd, and then on the 26th there was..."

yesman2000

European Son as pretty much everything covered. I followed a similar strategy and to get an A1. Pointers;

1) Don't stress on detail. Go for many paragraphs (only a few lines really) containing one reasonably well developed point. Aim for 10 of these, then add in intro and conclusion, essay done
2) When I was actually studying I would write out perfect essays and get them graded by my teacher regularly. If they're not perfect there's not much point learning them.
3) Off the top of my head (it's been 3 years) I think I had about 25 of these essays to call on.
4) I would write out essays, then follow this up with 'mind maps' containing the vital information. Then break every paragraph up into 4 or 5 bullet points. Repeating this process worked wonders for me. I'd then staple together and just read over them when ever I was a bit fed up with constantly writing out stuff. (WARNING: In most cases reading something isn't study you actively have to engage by writing things down)
5)Play close attention to timing and practice it. We all take this point for granted but it's very important.
6) Never try to predict.
7) Remember you're just retelling (relatively) interesting stories.